/lit/ - Literature

>>15398793
>All computation is ontologically dependent on consciousness

>>15398793
did someone actually say that?
that's a person desperately trying to save their job by claiming special protection

What would constitute an explanation of consciousness? What would such a thing look like?

>>15398793
Why is "all computation ontologically dependent on consciousness"?

>>15398793
Two names you should know on this subject are Searle and Dreyfous

>>15398830
They're both morons on the subject (as is Hart, obviously).

>>15398819
I think by that, he’s trying to say that computation can’t exist without consciousness. In other words, it logically precedes it.

>>15398838
Ah yes, and obviously anon here is the genuis that solved consciousness.
What do you recommend then?

>>15398805
You're the retard. A computer does not really compute. We compute, using it as a tool. We speak of computer memory, for instance, but of course computers recall nothing. They do not even store any "remembered" information but only preserve the binary patterns of certain electronic notations. And I do not mean simply that the computers are not aware of the information they contain; I mean that, in themselves they do not contain any semantic information at all. A computer no more remembers the files stored in it than the paper and print of the book next to me remember its contents.

>>15398838
this. searles chinese room is an absolute embarrassment. imagine not seeing the obvious immediate flaws of that thought "experiment".

>>15398861
Like?

>>15398842
But how does he figure that?

>>15398860

>>15398896
What does this image mean

>>15398891
Not the OP, im assuming he is refering to some other argument made in a different time. That’s just what I gathered from that sentence.

>>15398838
>>15398861
Are either one of you larpers going to respond to the questions asked?

For any lurker, let this be a reminder. Most anons here do not read or think, but blindly make assertions which they’re unable to support even against the most basic questions.

>>15398902
Cringe

>>15398852
Mind in Life by Evan Thompson
Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark

>>15398927
But everything that the other anon wrote is true
How is the truth cringe?

>>15398907
For the reason this anon>>15398860 gave.

>>15398939
Because the anon posting "cringe" is a stemfag and can't comprehend anything conceptually, so he just responds "cringe", "bait", "sage", etc. to anything he can't comprehend or argue against, but feels obligated to disagree with because people who are somewhat more intelligent than him whom he believes are geniuses disagree with it.

>>15398939
Idk I’m not the one that posted the image

>>15398793
Start with Feser's Philosophy of Mind.

>>15398860
>>15398939
>>15398940
>>15398955
Making a bunch of absurd statements like "A computer does not really compute" is not worthy of an in-depth response.

>>15398972
That's true.
What is meant by "a computer does not really compute"?

>>15398972
Read: "I'm incapable of giving an in-depth response."

>>15398985
Exactly what the anon above said, that the computer cannot comprehend information, it simply stores it in a particular language. The computer doesn't do anything without input.

>>15398992
And how is that any different from the human brain?

>>15398992
That's still computation. You could say something more like "the computer doesn't actually solve any problem, we do using it like a tool"
>>15399002
How is it the same?

>>15398805
All computation is a series of if statements which require consciousness to define them. Artificial consciousness isn't possible.

>>15399002
Because the human brain interprets information. It has consciousness and understanding, it thinks even without input and and produces creative output. Computers only do things because human brains have designed them to input data (given to them by humans) into sequences and then to display them to humans. They are no more animate or capable of animation than a painting.

>>15399013
That's not computation. The computer just does what people program it to do. It does nothing independently. It's like saying that a hammer is the thing doing the hammering.

>>15399018
You are just begging the question with unsupported assertions. "Because it's just not" is not a refutation.

>>15399013
And I suppose you think a clock tells time.

>>15399031
>That's not computation
How so? What do you define computation as?

>>15399031
>The computer just does what people program it to do.
People do just what natural selection programs them to do. Completely irrelevant.

>>15399046
>People do just what natural selection programs them to do.
Wrong. Evolutionary psychology is falsified pseudo science.

>>15399046
So natural selection programmed Tolkien to create an entire imaginary world with dozens of languages? Interesting theory.

>>15399043
The ability to experience and process without prior instruction.

>>15399046
That's a non sequitur. We're talking about consciousness. Even if we have no free will, we're still conscious.

>>15399046
Natural selection is not an entity with a consciousness of its own like you seem to think it is.

>>15399046
The actual state of sciencefags. We're all robots determined to act a certain way by our Lord Darwin, may he rest in peace.

>>15399065
>The ability to experience and process without prior instruction.
But human beings do have prior instruction. What is an example of human behavior that wasn't learned over time though taking in sensory information?

>>15399046
>People do just what natural selection programs them to do.
Natural selection isn’t a directing force, it’s a post-hoc phenomenon. If there’s a random forest fire, killing half the population in a species, than thise whi survived (randomly and arbitrarily) would have been naturally selected. Features and traits that seem to have a survivalist logic originate from random mutations and depend on the idionsincracies of the environment to become relevant and propogate.

>>15399084
Taking in sensory information, retard.

>>15399096
For all we know, that's exactly how the brain makes decisions.

>>15399084
Your two sentences contradict each other. The first implies humans have an essential nature, the second implies they have a constructed nature.

>>15398971
Thanks. I recall Hart citing that too. I'll check it out.

>>15398933
Are they materialists?

Fascinating how many antiscience religious fundamentalists are on /lit/.

>>15399100
Sure, but in that case, it’s nothing like computer programs which are made with a purpose and function in mind.

>>15399096
Yes but fire is not a 'selecting mechanism'. If you want to interpret reality in terms of some kind of selecting mechanism, you'd have to use something from nature, or some kind of socially Darwinian argument, which again doesn't hinge on computation but rather some form of characteristic, physical or mental, which is making the sexual selection operate in an above normal pattern for that particular person.

It's all so tiresome, none of it makes any sense, and simply serves to deny Biblical teachings, increase sexual frustration/activity in the masses, and also contribute towards the non-individualistic tendencies of modern society, where all elements of your self are lost to the mass of prideful humanity, prideful on being materialistic.

>>15399120
Where is the anti science religious fundamentalism in this thread?

>>15399121
Not all computer programs.

>>15399120
see
>>15399122


It's honestly just a backlash at contemporary evolutionary science. It doesn't make any sense and is not really a good cause for the origin of the species.

>>15399107
Why not both?

>>15399120
I'm not even religious and no one has denied evolution. Just because you don't understand how the origin of species by natural selection works doesn't mean that our refutation of your flawed understanding of it is a refutation of evolutionary science.

>>15399120
>being anti science is religious fundamentalism
People who depend too much on the causality principle are often out of touch with how the real world actually works.

>>15399124
See:
>>15399059
>>15399065
>>15399078
>>15399122
>>15399127
>>15399143

>>15399150
I'm >>15399065 , and I'm an atheist. You just don't know how natural selection works. You're treating evolutionary theory as a monotheistic religion instead of as a scientific theory.

>>15399120
It's not anti-science so much as it is anti-Scientism. I'm not even religious but I've read enough about consciousness to know that it's still a mystery and science has provided no satisfactory explanations for it yet. It's still hotly contested.

>>15399150
Evolutionary psychology is not a proper science, since non if its hypotheses can be falsified. It’s a rational psychology, nit an empirical one.

>>15399157
See
>>15399172

>>15398860
>A computer does not really compute.
>>>/x/

>wow a Bentley Hart thread! This should be intere-

Cmon lads, Ross refuted materialism already. Not sure why this argument for the immaterial mind hasn't been posted in this thread yet.

1. All formal thinking is determinate.
2. No physical process is determinate.
3. Thus, no formal thinking is a physical process.

http://rocketphilosophy.blogspot.com/2013/11/immaterial-aspects-of-thought-james-ross.html

>>15399185
>Ross refuted materialism already
Lol, who?

>>15399179
That's not anti-science fundamentalism, that's questioning whether a specific field meets the empirical rigours to be referred to as science.

>>15399180
There's nothing irrational about that statement. The operations of a computer taken by themselves are physical events devoid of meaning.

>>15399203
Not an argument. You can't refute his argument here.

>>15399183
This is actually a pretty decent thread. Notice the lack of basedjaks

>>15399150
Evolutionary Psychology literally makes no testable predictions and has been falsified numerous times when analyzing other societies.
You're a dumb fuck retard

>>15399150
None of those things are "anti science religious fundamentalism".

>>15399208
you're not saying anything about computation or its fundamental properties here, only about how you see computation and what you think necessarily follows from that. map and territory, semantic games and all that etc. it's all so tiresome.

>>15399205
Exactly. There's nothing wrong with that. Evolution is not bullet proof.

>>15399317
Without semantics there is only syntax. You are engaging in semantics right now.
I'm tired of morons not understanding this. SEMANTICS ARE THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. SYNTAX WITHOUT SEMANTICS IS IRRELEVANT.
Explain right now what "computations fundamental properties" are without relying on your own sensory experiences and data and therefore YOUR OWN SEMANTICS

>>15399302
>Evolutionary Psychology literally makes no testable predictions and has been falsified numerous times when analyzing other societies.
>You're a dumb fuck retard

>>15399342

>>15398793
On showing the absurdity of AI read Minds, Machines and Gödel
On explaining consciousness read the Bible and the fathers

>>15399339
you can't conclude anything meaningful about the physical universe based around your armchair analysis of the word "computation". this is sophistry basically. this kind of approach is why philosophers without significant training in natural science are so cringe.

>>15399436
>philosophers without significant training in natural science are so cringe
The dumbfucks in this thread spouting sophistical arguments are religious fundamentalists, not philosophers. All professional philosophers who address scientific issues receive significant training in natural science.

>>15399436
I study math you idiot.
I will ask you again: Define "computation's fundamental properties" without using your own sensory experiences and data (which are your semantics).
>>15399464
There is nothing in this thread that's anti science or religious fundamentalism. Stop saying false things if you want to be taken seriously.

>>15399016
No it isn't, a computation is inputs with outputs.
A plinko board is computing chaos.

All computation is, is the numerous threads of influence and causality resolving.

A plant grows towards the sun, with out knowing what sun is. It resolves the direction and moves to face it. The most advanced thoughts man has ever had are simply more elaborate forms of this exact same thing.

>>15399600
>invent computers
>all of nature is suddenly computational

damn, that was convenient, huh?

>>15399067
If you define conscious as the very specific level of complexity we humans have, then sure. But that's just scaling up what a squirrel has and down what some bigbrained multidimensional thinking nebula has.

The problem with people claiming consciousness is a distinct thing is they can not define what exactly it is. This is because what they have in mind as a distinct thing does not actually exist, instead they are chasing their desire for it to be a thing because it 'seems' like it aught to be a thing to them. At what exact moment does a person become so brain damaged they are no longer conscious? How smart does an animal need to be to be considered it? If no animal ever could be and its some quality of human 'spirit' then why even define it at all with examples relating to calculation?

>>15399617
All those things on your chart are literally just the same thing to different degrees of refinement, and ironically the animal and 'like facebook' are both the most abstract, showing that we have come full circle, form assuming some undefinable animal will to assuming some incalculable social machine whos workings can never be fully traced or understood but which simply manifests memes out of collective consciousness.

>>15399543
the fact that we cannot escape our own minds doesn't prove that there is nothing outside of them.

>>15399617
Gotta love the AItards who think 'singularity' or 'eternal life span' have any reality in effect.

If you could upload your thought patterns to a machine would that still be you? No, of course not. End of discussion.

>>15399898
of course it would.

>>15398819
Computation is relational. It is a process of understanding and creating relationships between information by way of symbol. This necessitates a consciousness in order to provide rational meaning to the symbol, do imbue the relationship with meaning so that it is anything other than arbitrary. Put another way, a code can only be a code if there is a consciousness to codify and to decode. Without the consciousness to pack and unpack meaning, the code remains an inert and unrecognized pattern.

>>15399949
>It is a process of understanding and creating relationships between information by way of symbol
I'm sure a theoretical CSist would disagree.

>>15398793
That is remarkable! This means chemical reactions have consciousness! This means bacteria have consciousness!
Wow, the possibilities are endless!

>>15399979
That's exactly what it doesn't mean, though you can find some panpsychists who defend that position.

>>15399976
Then you're sure to be wrong.

>>15399976
I really don't see how they could. By complex circuits of electricity, various positive and negative charges are recorded to a set pattern as a code for other codes which are expressed by virtual symbols. But, for it to actually be computation, there needs to be a beginning set of information put into the system which then processes that information by way of code in order either to translate it by location or else adjust it, both of these actions being determined by relationship to the initial data in its meaning and position. It all relies on Boolean logic, which is expressly relational.

>>15398793
logos rising
e Michael Jones

>>15400584
There's no fundamental difference between humans and computers.

>another thread in which nobody gets anywhere trying to answer the unknowable question of what sorts of things are conscious and what consciousness is
based philosophy

>>15400805
The main issue is retards like >>15400795 who can't even formulate a proper argument

>>15400795
Do you know what fundamental means?

>>15400805
99.9% of /lit/tards are shitposters who have no training in philosophy or the relevant sciences.

>>15400539
How doesn't it mean that? Also I'm being sarcastic if you can't tell. I'm trying to show how dumb OP's point is.

>>15399261
You have very low standards for decency.

>>15400818
>projecting this hard

>>15400826
Empirically demonstrate that one needs a credential in order to discuss either natural or speculative philosophy accurately.

>>15400847
green text is not an argument either

>>15400855
That's easy: read this thread.

Before resolving whether consciousness develops out of pure sense, shouldn't we ask what sense without consciousness actually is to begin with?

>>15400861
You have not shown that there is any fundamental difference between humans and computers. Cope, pseud.

>>15400880
I think, therefore I am

What does a computer do?

>>15400892
It thinks.

>>15400899
LMAO

>>15400903
Not an argument, pseud-boy.

>>15400864
Anecdotal at best

>>15399385
For a refutation of Lucas read Hofstadter’s Gödel Escher Bach.

>>15400941
See every purportedly "philosophical" debate ever conducted on the internet -- starting with newsgroups in the 1980s.

>>15398793
>Which book will explain consciousness to me once and for all?

Adi Shankara's Upanishad commentaries

https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf

>>15401000
Is your experience of online discussions over the past 40 years really representative of all scientific discussion?

>>15398793
because materialist explanations are all wrong and stupid methods of cope for being a meat beag

>>15401013
I would be careful about reading Shankara as your introduction to Hindu philosophy, he is extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (he's called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 8th century AD quasi-buddhism.

>>15401109
It's representative of all philosophical discussion by untrained morons, yes.

>>15401142
Lol, like clockwork.

>>15399917
No it wouldn't

>>15398793
Mysticism, what else? Nothing.

>>15401143
You might want to read that one back.

>>15401142
>read a religious text that isn't religious
>or at least tackle thousand year old document without any understanding of the culture it was born out of (and it's poorly documented) or the language it was written in
Indians don't have sectarianism or divisions the same way we do. Even Hinduism is mostly western categorisation, everything they do is uncertain and loosely defined.

> Which book will explain consciousness to me once and for all?

>>15401186
You having trouble kiddo?

>>15401254
clueless

You want a definition for something can't be defined within the limitations of language. Consciousness in its purest sense is just a state, existing outside the duality of this world. There are also levels to it where individuality can dissolve and you understand consciousness from a different perspective since the origin of everything is consciousness. This is not something you can understand intellectually so I wouldn't go that route.

>>15401340
Have you even been to India?

>the Jungian perspective

>>15401341
>>>/x/

>>15401335
>Is your experience representative of online discussions over the past 40 years really representative of all scientific discussion?
>It's representative of all philosophical discussion by untrained morons, yes.

>>15401386
Not my problem you decided to insert a non-sequitur.

>>15401406
Bro, you're calling yourself a moron.

>>15401519
Read it again, dimwit.

>>15398805
>>15398819
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computation-physicalsystems/#VarPan

>>15398860
>A computer does not really compute
In Soviet Russia compute computers!

>>15401357
based

>>15401586
no u

I'll never understand the brainlets who claim our mode of thinking is equivalent to something we created and are infinitely more complex than. Also here's a wojak to bring the quality of this thread down to where it belongs. In the fucking trash. Sorry OP, good question, retarded posters

>>15402342
our brains were created by inanimate matter tbqh

>>15402342
Retard alert.

>>15402423
We're talking about the mind, not the brain.

>>15398860

Sheer common sense, great post. A computer doesn't compute anymore than an abacus.

>>15398793
Can someone give me an example of something not ontologically dependent on consciousness?

>>15402857
what do you think created the mind

>>15400899
>Thinking = the process of using one’s mind to consider or reason
Computers don’t act on their own accord. The processes they use are scripted by a programmer. Humans don’t have direct scripting that commands or guide their thought. It’s self-propogated and mitivated by biological imstincts. Even recursive AI that writes its own code have that feature inserted by humans. The functions and faculties of the human mind are ontogenically self-sufficient. This is a qualitative distinction that you have to address before you can say computers “think”.

Plus, im still waiting from the very beginning of the thread for somebody to offer a rebuttal to the chinese room problem.

>>15402423
Cells and neurons are animate, anon.

>>15402927
Mind, otherwise known as God, is eternal and infinite.

>>15402902
Noumena

>>15398793
>he or she is saying
Uhm Cringe

>>15399302
>Evolutionary Psychology literally makes no testable predictions
then why do bitches like that I'm tall fag

>>15399302
>has been falsified numerous times when analyzing other societies.
Yeah the idea that our psychologies evolved has been falsified. lol

>>15398793
>All computation is ontologically dependent on consciousness
wrong, retarded, etc.

>>15402965
>Plus, im still waiting from the very beginning of the thread for somebody to offer a rebuttal to the chinese room problem.

there isn't one (same with Mary's room, if you ever wanna have a laugh check out the SEP article on it, the gordian knot was looser than the pretzels these clowns twist themselves into), the closest I've ever found was a riff of Whitehead... If we give the computer a robust enough "contextuality" to "inhabit", it will indeed know what it's knowing and doing - in the same way that language is context-sensitive.

I'm skeptical, but it's a start.

>>15402970
cells and neurons were created by inanimate matter. Somehow atoms being gay and inanimate created the brain, seems like the chinese room applies to our brains too

>>15403142
At what point did inanimate matter phase into animate matter?

>>15403149
That's my point

Can we agree that the initiative of creation is just a necessity for reproductive, slightly similar systems and therefore human intelligence and phenomena could only be perceived by those human-arranged systems?

So for AI to become really human, it would need a complete human body, but then why it would be artificial? It would be just a normal human.

>>15400795
>There's no fundamental difference between humans and computers
No

>>15403319
computer tier response desu

>>15398860
>dude you're actually running videogames on your brain

>>15402965
Humans don't act on their own accord any more than robots do. Both were 'designed' by natural forces.

>>15400840
Such is life in communist fourchannel

>>15398793
Humberto Maturana wants a word with him.
>>15398814
there isn't one because it's a "suitecase word"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r70jzcmMxU
>>15398860
Computing doesn't imply understanding.
>>15399016
>All computation is a series of if statements which require consciousness to define them.
No, the definition of the statements is not 'computing'.
Why are you mixing these things together.
It's like saying that the oven which through radiating heat cooks the cake isn't "cooking" the cake because it can't taste it. Those two things are as unrelated as interpretation or understanding is to computing.

>>15398793
>The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim. - Edsger Dijkstra

>>15405336
Lmao goddamn

>>15401350
I've never been out of india

>>15405336
That's actually a very good way of thinking about it.

>>15398819
It's the pretentious way of saying consciousness causes thinking and not the other way around.

>>15399018
Actually the limited studies of humans deprived of stimulus during childhood shows severe intellectual impairment.

And of course it's a silly point. I could just as much install a read only memory module into a computer and get it to read from that. All computers already do this.

>>15398861

Searle's Chinese room itself is conscious. It doesn't matter whether you use a lookup table or a brain to generate "consciousness" because the result will be fundamentally the same.

>>15399949
>>15400584
Bruh this so called packing and unpacking is a computation. You are just unable to imagine the number and kind of computations it takes.

The fact that it is "binary" is irrelevant. You're using a very layman, vague idea of what binary is based on your experience with them. Logic gates are capable of forming themselves into more and more complicated structures, limited only by their memory and size. The behavior of neurons is actually proven to be reducible to Boolean operations.

>>15398793
>he or she
Why do the moderns do this?

>>15403152
It’s a bad one though. You dont need to answer that question to accept that, by definition, cells and neurons ARE animate. In fact, this is Searle’s point. We don’t know why, but we obviously know they are since we are. I
If we want yo create legit AIs, the only scientifically reasonable way, should be through biological means. You can never validate the consciousness of a computer.
>>15403401
Nature isn’t a active agent. Technically we’re Nature too.

>>15406484
Animate/inanimate is a vague unscientific distinction. We're all made up of the same fermions and bosons as the rest of nature.

>>15406484
everyone knows searles chinese room is bogus. just too many holes and qualifiers are needed to make it into an actual point. its rubbish and just not very eloquent.

>>15406497
You mean he BTFOs mind body dualists and they're still salty about it

>>15406521
no because plenty of physicalists disagree with it. its just a very bad thought experiment.

>>15398793
Where are the arguments and proofs of any such absurdist theory being computed? What makes us trust this specific computation? How do we, as biological beings isolate the part of our bio-computation that leads to truth from the part that doesn't?

This is very relevant to your post. How can we meta-narrate on our biological foundations using the biological foundations themselves? How do we distinguish between biological computations of our own-selves that our true and biological computations that are not, using biological computations machinery?

>>15400971
Quick rundown?

>>15398860

Pretty good.

>>15399600

What is "input" and "output" and the barrier between them without a Subject observing and defining them?

>>15405336
That's a good line, but aren't we interested in whether a sufficiently advanced computer has consciousness because we want to know whether it deserves rights?

Swimming is just another means to accomplish a goal (moving an object through the water), but consciousness is a state that we think triggers certain rights.

>>15406497
>>15406585
Not a single argument presented. Are you going to keep larping or provide one

>>15407861
my argument? anything that can produce the complex behaviour of a conscious being is conscious.

>>15407831
Computers will never "deserve rights" you're anthropomorphizing too hard. Even a conscious AI will not have a sense of pain or suffering of any sort unless we give it to them, and why would we do that?

>>15408090
What if we were to (theoretically) upload a human consciousness into a computer? Would they retain their rights? Would we revoke some rights?

>>15408052
So a hand puppet is conscious? Tell me more, since clearly you’ve thought this through.

>>15408121
No. It’s not a human nor is it genuinely conscious, otherwise we should give rights to waifus too.

>>15408121
If a man turned into a ox he would be still have to pull the plow and live in the barn, yeah?

>>15408148
of course it is both a human and genuinely conscious, you're like someone in the 1890s insisting airplanes are impossible, except the consequences of your stupidity are deeply immoral.

>>15408244
If he retained the same knowledge and ability to speak then what?

>>15408272
An ox with copied human memories is still an ox, mate

>>15408090
Conscious AI is an impossibility.

>>15398860
>A computer does not really compute.
>tfw when computation is semantically impossible

>>15408283
And I see a retard with internet access is still a retard

>>15406608
That's part of the point. Consciousness transcends biology.

>>15408297
If you say so. You talk about immorality yet you want to destroy humanity by making synthetic copies who will replace us so I don't value your opinion very highly

AI researchers are the only people who should be allowed to give opinions on what consciousness is, for they have been the closest ones to recreate it.

Prove me wrong.

>>15408310
They are nowhere near recreating consciousness, the computer that you are using right now has less consciousness than a protozoa

>>15408310
>for they have been the closest ones to recreate it.
Modern AI are 0% conscious, my dude

>>15408325
>>15408320
The computer I am using right now can outperform humans in tasks that have required human level cognition for centuries and no other animal can do.
Up until 20 years ago this was only doable by expert agreed upon sets of rules (which one might argue is an approximation of what consciousness is).
More recently AI systems that learn their own rules, too complex for us to retrieve, are increasing this gap. This could easily be argued to prove consciousness is achievable as a set of rules and learning algorithms working in tandem, and for you to continuously screech without offering an alternative better explanation is just a sad cope.

>>15408366
Wait a minute, you are clearly not an AI researcher. Why are you here spreading grandiose (and retarded) opinions on what consciousness is?

>>15406972
The way substances interact. I'm not the person you're quoting but he destroyed you handily with the plant example.

>>15408366
No matter how complex the operations of computers become, it is simply not possible for them to become conscious. We cannot create consciousness. This is why STEMfags need to start taking philosophy seriously. They used to, back in the days of Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein. But the philosophical illiteracy of today's scientists leads them to make idiotic claims over and over again.

>>15408366
That has nothing to do with self-awareness. If you had spiders that could build insanely complicated webs they still wouldn't be more conscious than the animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror.

>>15398860
>A computer does not really compute
bro a hammer does not really hammer
bro a plough does not really plough
bro a cart does not really cart
*hits bong*

>>15408385
Keep coping.
>>15408404
Everytime someone posts that debunked image of these scientists you're quoting, just think of how Feynman talked about philosophy. But in either case nothing you said is an actual argument.
You could start by trying to prove how the magical property of consciousness arises from individual cells that don't have it, and behave in predictable input->ouput relations, clumping up into a brain.
Any and all scientific results of the last 40 years indisputably suggests this to be the case, so perhaps instead of asking me to read 200 year old ramblings of people who never stepped into a laboratory, you could catch up with some of the literature that describes the actual physical world you inhabit and experience.

>>15399065
>compute
>The ability to experience
factually wrong

>>15408366
what does a bored computer do? :)

>>15399065
>without prior instruction.
No such thing. Your DNA is a set of instructions. Instinct has been shown to be affected by natural selection even in the time of Darwin. You are born with certain preprogrammed things.

>>15408419
How is self awareness different to web building? How aren't they just two things animals do because of chemical electrical algorithms in their brain?

>>15408463
not him but a web is a physical structure and self-awareness is a faculty of cognition

>>15408475
But he is not talking about the web, he is talking about the fact that the spider can build it. He is trying to say that the spider just builds it automatically without a deeper cognitive conceptualization of it, because the spider is not "aware". It's just a thing the spider's brain does.
I'm trying to get him to explain why he creates a special exception for "self-awareness" as not "just something that our brain does".

>>15406484
>, cells and neurons ARE animate.
This doesn't even mean anything, they're made of atoms like everything else. you could call a robot animate.

There is no reason to assume that consciousness is specially linked to the specific configuration of atoms that exists in biological cells.

>>15399302
You can be a denier all you want but the science is settled.

A computer is just a fancy calculator, a machine that does man made operations on man made symbols.
Thinking a computer can do conciousness is like thinking google maps can travel the world

>>15408536
>the pseudo-science is settled
fixed

>>15408529
So you attempt to defend the consciousness of computers is to deny the distinction between organic and inorganic chemistry and to deny the entire field of biology?

>>15408505
Well your question was poorly formed because there is clearly a distinction between the two. Self-awareness allows us to build complex webs ourselves, but building complex webs doesn't allow for self-awareness. I see your point anon but you have picked a terrible example that works against your point

>>15408253
No, im arguing that you cant make an airplane from rocks, which is what you’re trying to do using computers to create consciousness. The other anon already got btfo’d claiming “anything that can produce the complex behaviour of a conscious being is conscious.” with my puppet question. Get over it, we have no idea what causes comsicousness but we know whatever it is has a biologic origin.

>>15408538
>Robots built with metal
BAD!
>Robots built with organic compounds
GOOD!

Very interesting take.

>>15408556
>we have no idea what causes comsicousness
>but we know whatever it is has a biologic origin
??? Did you really type that out, read it back to yourself, and still post it? I'm starting to question whether you are conscious.

>>15408536
Can you even define what science is?

>>15408536
>the science is settled
spoken like someone who has never set foot in a science classroom

>>15408529
>There is no reason to assume that consciousness is specially linked to the specific configuration of atoms that exists in biological cells.
Holy shit, this is the retardAtion of CS fags. Yes there is, nothing without neurons or cells shows signs of consciousness.

>>15408574
An investigative method that you white supremacists reject because your egos are fragile.

>>15408572
Maybe you shouldnt be in /lit/ if you cant read. Those tatements dont contradict each other.
>No watson, I don’t know yet who killed the Duke, but all the facts say he must be in this room

>>15408602
Ah yes, how about this
>I don't know if this poster is retarded
>but he certainly posts retarded shit

>>15408543
>the distinction between organic and inorganic chemistry
Not a real distinction, the former is a subset of the latter.
>>15408581
Nothing shows signs of consciousness at all. Consciousness is completely undetectable outside every individual's own subjective awareness. There is no way to try to test if things have it or not, we cannot even do so for biological things.

>>15408563
Technically it isn’t a robot if its made using organic compounds. Absurdly reducing words and concepts so that there is no meaningful difference between them because you cant defend your argument with established definitions is a sign that your position isn’t very strong.

>>15408563
It has nothing to do with the materials, its the symbols! Man made symbols cannot reductionally explain conciousness, then any kind of operation done to those symbols either by us or by a computer will never reach a level outside those symbols. Thats what the quote on the op means. Even the word "conciousness" is an incomplete lie, its just a human symbol that has no objective connection to reality

>>15408625
I have never heard a definition of robots that says it cannot be made of certain materials
https://www.livescience.com/frogbots-living-robots.html

>>15408617
Again, proven illiterate. Try this and refer back to the post so that you can see the empirical evidence of your retardation
>we don’t know what specifically CAUSES anon’s retardation
>but we know definitley know he is retarded
Also, actual evidence is the fact you have to focus on some pendantic wording because you’re out of meaningful content. Not that you had much anyway.

>>15408625
That's just semantics. You're not up to date on the literature. You can even find youtube videos teaching you how to graft a sensor onto a cockroach and control it with a remote control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rp4V3Sj5jE

>>15408618
>Nothing shows signs of consciousness at all.
So you’re not conscious?
>Consciousness is completely undetectable outside every individual's own subjective awareness.
So this CS fags great solution to the problem of consciousness, solipsism? How novel, im sure there aren’t a billion arguments against this...

>>15408680
Do you actually disagree that we cannot detect consciousness in any way apart from our own? If you're going to attribute it solely to neurons you have to deal with the fact that neurons evolved slowly, at which point did they become conscious? And what reason is there to think that nothing else could be conscious?

>>15408645
>the world’s first “living machine”
The implication there being that machines aren’t traditionally considered living things.
>"They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal,"
>It's a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.
It seems to me like this post agrees with my definition. It’s an organism, not a robot.
>There's no external control from a remote control or bioelectricity. This is an autonomous agent — it's almost like a wind-up toy”
Yeah, nog really a robot. This is more likenit though, this is what AI research should more like.
>>15408650
See above

>>15408708
Jesus, fuck my spelling
>Yeah, not really a robot. This is more like it though, this is what AI research should look more like.

>>15408695
>Do you actually disagree that we cannot detect consciousness in any way apart from our own?
Yes.
1) You detect your own consciousness
2) You have no reason to assume or believe the world around you isn’t real
3) other people are made of the same stuff you are
4) They behave in the same manner you do
5) Logically, they also have consciousness

>>15398793
I didn't even know AI was a thing people do or do not believe in

>>15408695
>at which point did they become conscious?
Sometime around cephalization
>And what reason is there to think that nothing else could be conscious?
Complicated question, but it’s possible for something not carbon-based, ladden with neurons to be conscious, but we’re not going to recognize it until we understand what makes biological consciousness possible.

>>15408618
But what, then, is the latter? What is organic chemistry if there is no difference between it an inorganic chemistry? Further, would not the lack of distinction there mean there is also a lack of distinction between chemistry and biology? You seem to be confusing the fact that these things can be mathematically described with the idea that they are therefore all expressions of a fundamental mathematical reality. One thing is only ever distinguished from another thing by its properties and behavior. If it has different properties and behavior, it is fundamentally and self-evidently recognized to be a different thing. Hydrogen is different than Carbon because they have different properties and behave in different ways. The existence of life is accepted because those things called alive demonstrate different properties and behavior than those things recognized as not-alive. Importantly, the reality of different properties and behavior is actual and real, where as the semantics of describing and understanding this difference are speculative. That the explanation is speculative does not mean there is no real difference. A satisfactory explanation has not been given for consciousness such that all people agree, but it is self-evident from the real behavior of real things that there is such a difference between things that we can call consciousness. By the real differences in property and behavior we can readily accept that computers do not possess what we call consciousness, regardless of what consciousness is. Computers have different behaviors and properties than the human mind. To deny this is to deny self-evident reality. If even for the sake of argument you would deny what is self-evident, then you have denied the possibility for discussion. You have read and watched too much science-fiction. Than an author in a fantasy (which is a form of parable) may postulate on the the consciousness of machines does not grant them consciousness. This conversation is much like trying to convince a young child who has seen Toy Story that toys do not in fact have consciousness.

>>15408728
That is not detection, that is an assumption based on reasoning. And the logic that would assign consciousness only to these things that resemble you is faulty. That is like seeing lightning and assuming that electricity exists only in that kind of event.

>>15408751
Organic chemistry is a subset of chemistry that deals with complex molecules that make copies of themselves. There is nothing magical about it.

>>15408750
>until we understand what makes biological consciousness possible.
And until you understand that you shouldn't pronounce upon what consciousness is and what sorts of things could have it.

>>15408762
>That is not detection, that is an assumption based on reasoning.
Yes, but I thought I was arguing with someone who just referred to scientifc articles and data and who takes the existence of an external world as an axiom. You cant deny the existence of other’s consciousness and then continue on to parade your scientific data since they both depend on the same assumptions. Otherwise, why are YOU conscious and others aren’t?

If you want to program "conciousness", just program a shitty pattern recognition algorithm with mesianic delusions

>>15408807
I do assume other humans are conscious, the problem is that there is no way to physically detect it, so if consciousness exists in anything other than us there would be no way to know.

>>15408400

Input, output, way, interaction, all require a distinction between this and that, which I maintain is contingent on there being a Subject.

>>15408797
Wrong. We know consciousness is produced in biological beings, therefore by empirical logic we should look for the answer in biological beings. We don’t have any possible way to tell whether nonbiological beings can be conscious. The burden of proof is on you, and it’s an impossible proof in the route your going for. The other anon literally has to fall back on solipsism. You just want to try to program your way to AI because it will be easier to create complex turing passable behavior models than to actually dig down at the biological mechanisms of consciousness. Any reasonable person understands that the only way to know whether computerized AI is actually conscious would be to understand the mechanismcs of biological consciousness first.

>>15408780
What do you mean there's nothing magical about it. Why should they make copies of themselves? Why should that be the way things are? Why is it only those specific elements in those specific combinations which behave in this way, while everything else behaves a different way? You must at least recognize that there is a difference, yes? And if there is a difference, they are not the same, yes? Surely you can see that it is not we who made the distinction, but rather we who recognized a real behavioral difference, yes?

>>15408835
When proton A collides with proton B who is the subject?

>>15408830
I disagree, I think there could be a way to detect it in biological beings. I mean, we already know it depends on the brain. That took a couple thousand of years. We also know different set of neuronal activation are responsible for different conscious-states, etc, etc. I dont think the answer to biologic consciousness will remain forever a mystery.

>>15408844
>Any reasonable person understands that the only way to know whether computerized AI is actually conscious would be to understand the mechanismcs of biological consciousness first.
I agree with this. I am just not discounting the possibility that other things are conscious until we know what it is.
>>15408849
I have no idea why things are the way they are, but that is why life behaves so differently, because the molecules make copies of themselves in a specific way that allows for natural selection

>>15408855
Protons are a human concept, without a subject there are no protons.

>>15408893
Nice, I wanted you to say that out loud, so I knew I could disregard your schizo mysticism. I tend to prefer the universe still existed even before living beings were there to experience it, but that's just me.

>>15408869
Do you not think consciousness is unlike any other question by its very nature?

Everyone on this thread is looking at a computer screen where text appears. Would you say your computer is conscious because it can make text appear on the screen?

>>15408855

What is a proton without Subject? Why would they not constitute a greater whole in which there is no collision in the absence of one's observation? Why would they? What sense do any of these questions make?

>>15408897
>I tend to prefer

So THIS is the power of Empiricism?

>>15408897
Lol you still dont get it. Its not that the physical universe doesnt exist, its that we will never experience it directly. "Proton" is a human concept with no objective connection to objective reality.

>>15408855
A proton is mostly empty space, it never "collides" with anything.
You see how easily your human made concepts made you certain of what its not even truth?

>>15408911
>What is a proton without Subject?
It's a proton.
>Why would they not constitute a greater whole in which there is no collision
Because the collision happened. You could claim they are part of a larger system, and you might call the system "the universe", or you could call the pair of protons "Timmy and Jimmy" and call the collision a handshake, but it still happened.
>Why would they?
Laws of physics.
>What sense do any of these questions make?
You seem to be very confused by the existence of a universe beyond your senses, so I'm not sure exactly.

>>15408923
Not being hostage to absolutely laughable ideas like "when I'm asleep the universe literally stops existing because I'm not experiencing it"? I'd say that's a pretty sweet power.

>>15408938
>no objective connection to objective reality.
I know you guys love idealism but for you to claim that there is NO connection between scientific results and objective reality is some scary level of coping. Natural phenomena happen, we can test and observe them. Whether that is the "full objective picture of reality beyond the senses, the thing in itself" or not is completely irrelevant.

>>15408954
You're thinking of "atoms" there, chief. Also they do collide, just not like billiard balls. Your pop-sci bazzinga moment is not necessary in this thread.

>>15408898
I think the evolution of the concept of consicousness has muddled the problem beyond repair. The concept of it as merely an aggregate of functions and faculties is what makes it so contentious in the context of AI. Like the guy saying consicousness is computing at the beginning itt. I take consciousness as the reciprocal relationship between congition and anschauung . I dont think computers can be conscious without anschauung.

>>15408883
Do you understand rhetorical questions?

>>15408979
Your rhetorical questions appeared irrelevant to me so I posted what I thought was relevant to the actual question of why life has all these unique properties, which is because it replicates in a way that allows for natural selection, a process that creates enormous amounts of complexity.
>>15408972
I'm not familiar with the term anschauung but the definition google gives me(visual as opposed to physical space) sounds like it means practically the same thing as consciousness or qualia, it's just kind of avoiding the problem isn't it? Either way it's clear that for thousands of years people have tried to answer these questions about consciousness and it has always remained both confusing to even formulate properly as a question, and seemingly distinct from all other questions we can ask about the world, which are all only ever given to us 'within' consciousness in the first place.

>>15408963

You seem to be the one invested in fantasy at the detriment of truth.

>>15401940
I like how no one actually engaged with this essay, which was the premise of the thread.

>>15409018
Why did you think they were irrelevant?

Why cant computers have "human concioussness"?
Why cant cats have " human faces"?
Why cant ants have "human hands"?

>>15409050
Because the original question was the distinction between organic and inorganic chemistry, and the reason that organic chemistry has produced such complex entities is natural selection. You were asking something like 'isn't it weird that carbon has the properties that allow for this', yes it is weird I guess, but that's just...how carbon is, what are we supposed to say about that?

>>15398860
Literally no one has refuted this.

>>15409048
the guy should have written a short post about it if he wanted people to engage with it

>>15409018
>it's just kind of avoiding the problem isn't it?
Why? It refers to the “embodied” part of consciousness. Feeling your hand is as much a state of consciousness as having an idea or doing a calculation.

>>15409078
Do you not realize that the first question was also rhetorical? If you follow the questions, you should be able to understand the point I'm trying to make.

>>15409079
It's an untestable proposition. There is no way to verify if a computer has internal awareness.

>>15409092
>So you attempt to defend the consciousness of computers is to deny the distinction between organic and inorganic chemistry and to deny the entire field of biology?
This is where the chain takes me, organic chemistry and biology are subsets of more general sciences, and I don't deny their particularity, I just said that natural selection is the cause behind their divergence.

Just state what you mean if it was something else.

>>15398793
why cant consciousness be material? why are you assuming this can’t be true? i am not saying it is or isn’t material, or that the distinction even exists, but perhaps that you are claiming to know something that can’t be known. Who cares though, consciousness can’t be understood. There is no explanation, there is just different stories people have about it. Why do you want to understand it?

>>15408131
but a hand puppet cant produce complex behaviour. you fucking muppet.

A computer cant have conciousness because conciousness is not real

>>15409100
ridiculous. a computer with awareness will behave as an aware being would.

>>15409146
>but a hand puppet cant produce complex behaviour
Yes, it can. It can dance, and fence, and sign its name. Unless of course, you mean self-sufficiently produce behavior without human input, in which case, neither can a computer

>>15409183
you can be entirely paralyzed and still be conscious, behavior is not a perfect indication

>>15408475
Compare how humans who haven't been taught to swim drown all the time vs how animals know how to doggy paddle instinctively. However when humans are taught to swim they're great at it.
Another example. It's been proven with tests done on people with destroyed hippocampuses that the "habit" part of the brain stores memories that are of practical use but the conscious brain is completely unaware of them.
The question is a lot more complicated than you give it credit mate, even without bringing AI into the equation

>>15409183
>a computer with awareness will behave as an aware being would.
So do cartoons, I guess spongebob is conscious

>>15409198
>>15408505
Fuck me responded to the wrong person lel. Either way yeah there's a lot to indicate that instinctive intelligence is a distinct/parallel phenomenon from conscious intelligence, you really shouldn't conflate them

>>15409184
Neither can a human for that matter, we are all self deluded chinese rooms

>>15409207
Does Spongebob interact with his audience?

You could argue Spongebob as a video game character is conscious, you could not do the same with the cartoon.

>>15409221
Lacking free will doesn't mean we're chinese rooms

>>15409248
>Does Spongebob interact with his audience?
What if im controling a spongebob animation puppet and interacted with you? Would you still say it’s conscious?No? But it behaved like one.
>But you were controlling it
what is a script? Why does it matter if I control its behavior at the moment or preemptively?

>>15402965
>Humans don’t have direct scripting that commands or guide their thought. It’s self-propogated and mitivated by biological imstincts.
>The functions and faculties of the human mind are ontogenically self-sufficient.
No, they are not. We, too, were created/transformed, and that which performed the action was too, and that which transformed that was too, on and on to infinity. To state otherwise would be to refute Newton's first law of motion. So we do, in a way, have a "direct" scripting, it is just that we do not know it ourselves (since we cannot know ourselves, since then we would need to know ourselves knowing ourselves, which means we would need to know ourselves knowing ourselves knowing ourselves, and on and on).

>>15409321
This is a high quality shitpost

>>15409184
it cant without a human. i dont see your point about the computer.


>>15409195
Yeah but your brain is still functioning in a complicated way. either way, a non conscipus thing couldnt behave as a human could.


>>15409282
the point is that a conscious thing is behind the behaviour... anything that recreates conscious behaviour is conscious. i could easily counter your cartoon thing by saying my face.and hands and vocal cords arent conscious.

The question is fundamentally meaningless till you define consciousness. If you define consciousness as processing, then all processes become conscious. You can easily, then, claim the chinese room itself is conscious, since it itself is a processing. Most philosophical problems remain unsolved because of them being meaningless.

>>15409344
That is a contradiction.
>>15409347
>it cant without a human.
This is not true. We can imagine a situation in which the wind blows the sock perfectly so it starts appearing to you as if it is dancing, or fencing, or even signing it's name.

>>15409347
>i could easily counter your cartoon thing by saying my face.and hands and vocal cords arent conscious.
Although I would want to agree, I can’t because you’re a human and cant deny you consciousness empirically without contradictingly denying the external world too. In which case consciousness is the least of my worries.

>>15409416
do you honestly think a sock puppet dancing is what you wouls use to assess consciousness? its not intelligent behaviour. it pales compared to the obvious complexity of a person.

>>15409459
my point is that the expression of my consciousness is different to my consciousness itself. My consciousness is in my brain while its expressed in my voice and my hands. Its analogous to a puppet being the expression and non conscious with the person behind it being conscious. regardless, complex consicous behaviour requires a conscious person. obviously a sock puppet dancing might not be evidence enough but something more complex and interactive then i would be inclined to think a consciousness was behind it.

>>15409459
Join the solipsism club bro

>>15409195
>you can be entirely paralyzed and still be conscious, behavior is not a perfect indication
And here we enter the crux of the problem: if behavior does not indicate whether one is conscious or not, whether one thinks or not, then how is consciousness/thinking related to materiality at all? But here we should recognize an error.
In your example with the paralyzed, conscious person, you forgot to admit that the thought of a paralyzed person is not equivalent with that of an unparalyzed person. Indeed, the one might think with greater difficulty, in nothing but a dream with a artificial concatenation of events lead by memory. So, here, in different states of consciousness, we can recognize a correlation with states of the body. But this also raises another question: what if we considered all materiality a body?

This might initially appear strange, but it is a necessary question to ask. For, there was a time when humans didn't exist, when even the lower animals didn't exist, when their was nothing but the combinatorial logic of particles interlocking and seperating. And all the pretension of human as sole keeper of thought and consciousness is itself questioned when we realize we are made out of these combinatorial particles, and by constructing a similar form to our own out of them would result in thinking creatures all the same. The form of the body would necessitate a certain form of thought.

It becomes, at this point, necessary to pose all bodies as thinking, as conscious.

Now the next question to be asked is the relation between these two different aspects.

>>15409503
>do you honestly think a sock puppet dancing is what you wouls use to assess consciousness? its not intelligent behaviour. it pales compared to the obvious complexity of a person.
How do you assess the difference between intelligent behaviour and the appearance of intelligent behaviour? That was my point, I gave the sock dancing as an analogy to demonstrate it better.

>>15409122
You said that we could call robots animate, in the same manner as neurons/brains. But biology is the study of life, as distinct from things which are not alive. That is, animate. Organic chemistry is the study of those chemicals which are essential to organisms, and which beahve in a manner we call organic. Robots share nothing in common in either material or behavior with the chemicals of organic chemistry or the organisms of biology. They share no properties with what we call alive. In order to call them animate, because there is a movement of their parts and a material reactivity would be to so widen our understanding of life that organic chemistry could no longer be meaningfully distinguished, and biology would be a redundant category of physics. That you would maintian these categorical distinctions deminstrates that you recognize the obvious behavioral and matetial differences between the subjects of these sciences. The point of a rhetorical question is to encourage the reader or hearer to further develop their answer and in so doing hopefully recognize some error or contradiction they have made. The simple fact is you have decided first to believe computers can be called conscious, and are now working to justify this claim, but in the process are cannibalising the foundations of your argument.

>>15409547
It doesnt make sense for something to behave as if it was intelligent and not be intelligent.

>>15409550
There is no difference between living things and things which aren't alive. This has been a hilarious problem in biology, and other fields of science, where life / "animation" is used constantly in a religious way. It is untenable. At what point does "life" start? If you say particles aren't alive, then nothing is alive, since everything is made out of particles. If you claim particles are alive, then I reply back that then the definitions of alive and not alive are equivalent. "Life", as a concept, is nothing but inheritance from the niavete of religious thinking.

>>15409550
No I said that we don't know if computers can be conscious and that biological life is reducible to normal chemistry. There is no reason to think that only some specific combination of atoms gives rise to consciousness when it is impossible to detect consciousness in the first place.

You yourself are asserting that computers can't be conscious instead of admitting that you don't know.

>>15409580
Then I will give you an example. You know weekend at bernies, right? Imagine if the old guy died, but his corpse managed to be hit and react with his environment in such a way as if he appeared to be alive to others. His corpse walked, his corpse danced, his corpse even solved math equations and such. At this point, he would be dead, but he would be appearing to act intelligent. Is he conscious? You would say yes, since his corpse is behaving as if it was intelligent.

>>15409623
no i dont know weekend at bernies so i dont know what you mean by hit.

>>15409648
Movie where kids dress up dead guy to make people think he's still alive.

>>15409695
Right..

>>15408597

Hoo boy that is a fucking projection if I've ever seen one.

>>15410491
Do your boss and family know you're a Holocaust denier?

They will.